Visit to the Please Touch Museum
Build Play Learn visited the Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall in Philadelphia this weekend. We wanted to get a perspective on how a museum dedicated to learning through play structures their exhibits and interventions. The Please Touch Museum is highly popular among adults and children alike. The exhibits are designed to be targeted toward children and seem to allow the children interacting with them to assume the role of an adult. For example, there is a section of the museum titled City Capers in which children can wander around and play different roles in very lifelike situations including a miniature Shop-Rite supermarket, doctor’s office, McDonald’s, and shoe store.The museum also features over 12,500 items in a contemporary toy collection that can act as a multi-generational conversation piece. It was very apparent that the children visiting the museum were playing, and definitely having fun. Our concern was in how much and what exactly the children were learning with their experience at the museum. For the most part, the play that the children were engaged in was done in closed parameters and specific roles, rather than leaving the child to openly create solely with their imagination. View the Flickr set here.